Uber or Taxi Service? It Depends Where You Live

Who’s in the driver’s seat? It depends on where you live.

If you’re in New York City, it’s still probably an old-fashioned cab driver. Getting a ride in San Francisco? You’re more likely to use one of the newer ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft, where drivers use their own cars to offer rides-for-pay.

We wanted to know more about how people are really using ride-sharing apps and where according to Earnest data. We pulled these insights from the anonymized transactions from tens of thousands of Earnest loan applicants.

Key points from our data:

City dwellers spend a median of $17/month on Uber

In New York City, 35% of people use cabs, whereas 28% use Uber and only 8% use Lyft

In San Francisco, both ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft are used by more people than taxis